Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1887-03-26
UNDER THE CHANDELIER.
CHAT ABOUT WHAT THEY CALL
SASSlETY" IN NEW YORK.
The village Element-The Recitation
Manfa-Stuffy Parlors With Overloaded
Walls-Undue Lavishness-Nore Tjgbt
Space and Air Wanted.
Especial Correspondence

NEW YORK, March 16.
The thing they call "saSsiety" is a queer in
stitution here in New York. If YOU are in
the intellectual or Bohemian swim you meet
the same persons everywhere you go exactly
as You would in the village Of Jonesville. A
/ few strangers are in every company, perhaps
-meteors of social life who trail down its be-
dizzened skies once in glory and disappear
! forever, leaving not even q memory of them
selves
! But for the most part there is a stock conn
! pany Cf guests at every house. They are the
standard figures on whom hostesses can do.
pend. They get to be a little heavy to one
who likes to see new faces; but there is no
! help for it. Receptions differ but little one
from the other. As you find them one season
so are they always. Circuses and steamboat
excursions are not more alike. You NAV drop
out of the round, and nobody will miss YOU.
You may stay away year or two and appear
again, and nobody will notice your absence.
| You will chat with Col. P. and firt with Judge
c. and fiatter Gen. E., and no one Of them will
remember that he has not seen you in twenty
four moons. "SaSSiety" is headless. mind
less. soulless thing anywhere you encounter
it. Yet here are men and women growing
old doing nothing but elbowing each other in
crowded parlors, and calling it pleasure, en-
tertainment, social success, etc. 1t makes
every difference about a name, you know.
Call that sort of thing work and no human
energy could make it 60
know three or four elderly men without
any home ties-hotel habitues-who go call
ing every afternoon and to a reception every
evening during the season. When summer
fhaxy
places. One told me that this had been his
programme for eight years. asked him if
it wasn't terribly tireSome. "Well," he said,
is all there is for me. have no family,
no home interests, no business affairs, moth
ing in particular to do with myself, SO I may
as well go here, there, everywhere, and mix
with people even if there is no particular
pleasure in it." What a conclusion for a.
mans life; what sarcasm on society. Per-
hapS twenty others in the same company
could have told similar tale had they been
as honest as he. He was in bis seventies
too. What a sermon in favor of the natural
ties of home This man had been married.
The ties of his youth and early manhood fell
away from him and left him in old age a
floating, drifting hulk, belonging nowhere
and perhaps only indifferently welcome
where he did go. Surely life has proved but
poor school to any one who has found no
better means of passing the end of his DAYS.
REGULATIONS have been devastating the par
lors of New York society, particularly that
part of it made up of professional people.
writers, artists, etc. One beautiful and
wealthy young lady does comic character
sketches in most inimitable way, but quite
often the recitations get to be very drearv.
Music, like the poor, we have always with
us. That we expect, endure, and sometimes
enjoy in crowded parlors; but the recitation
is often in the nature Of last straw and
breaks down our endurance entirely.
One lady has devised a new feature and
carries it out with inimitable success. She
tells "colored stories"-humorous chapters of
negro life-and does it exquisitely. She is a
writer who has lived south q number of
years and acquired an unimpeachable negro
dialect Her stories always excite roars of
laughter and are great reliefs from the Cur
few Must Not Ring Tonight" or some other
mournful bit of moderation known as reel
tation.
Don't fancy that nobody but brilliant and
interesting men and women pervade New
York parlors; ninnies and nondescripts are as
plentiful here as anywhere, perhaps more So
One evening not long since a youth with a
neck like long smelling bottle, encased in a
collar that admitted of no quarter, asked a
young lady of strong minded proclivities if
She believed it was "weally wight for women
to vote.n He said that in his opinion "ten-
derness" was the thing Women should cul-
tivate tenderness, and not strength of mind
He hated strong minded women. "And men,
too, 1 should judge" said the witty girl
G. ho oAa
drawl though he is native of New Jersey,
II think men are purposely endowed with the
brains of tiie race, in order to prevent women
from becoming coarse and unlovely." And
he was quite in earnest and thought he was
saying something sensible. There are hun
dreds of others like him here.
Stuffiness is the bane of New York houses
and private entertainments in New York.
Parlors are like museums or exhibits of brio
a brac and paintings. And as for fresh air,
they exclude It by every artificial device the
the upholsterer can think Of. The windows
are covered with three or four kinds of
curtains, and though there may be a hundred
persons in the room the windows are all kept
sealed and muffled. A stray breath that
dared to filter in through an unguarded
crevice would be driven back at once by
mass of impure air which would present a
solid front to it. And often not a speck of
space on the walls is left uncovered by picture
or statuette. The eye wearies looking at
them. One picture detracts from another,
one ornament overwhelms Its nelghbor
Space-clear, light, joyous space-so precious
in New York, is loaded down and peopled
with trash All this gives an atmosphere of
stuffiness to room that half STILES one who
likes air, light and sunshine. All these things,
however beautiful, are dead, in comparison
to light, space and sunshine.
The only place know where sunshine is
.fa1 ov,1 1af<
filled is an eyrie fiat occupied by two literary
women, who have strong anti-stuffy ideas
Their floors are covered with light mating,
with moderate use of Venetian bordering,
art squares and good rugs. Their curtains
are mere lambrequins of thin lace trimmed
muslin, tied with ribbons. Their chairs are
rattan, and so are their sofas, and very few
of them. Their pictures are few but good.
The walls are covered with golden paper. The
whole effect is summary brightness night or
day. If people only would learn that heavy,
stuffy house furnishings are as ugly and
oppressive to the spirit as they are unhealth-
full TO the body there might be revolution
in house adornments.
japanese rugs of rare silk, moth proof, and
neutral in tone, are becoming the fashionable
fad in house furnishing now. They are
exquisite, so rich and quiet looking, so very,
very exalted in taste.
IavshneSS in every particular Is the special
New York sin-not lavlshness for the pleas
ure we feel in possessing and bestowing
plenty: but the lavishness of show, the ap-
Dearance of luxury. If a friend invites you
To dine. enough food for weeks sustenance
is set before YOU. If you wear or carry flow
ers to a reception bushel basket full at least !
is necessary. Everything reaches to an ex-
IRENE. Simplicity is lost sight of-gone out I
of vogue. 1t is still considered beautiful /!
thing in poems, novels, pictures and plays; /!
but in real life in New York it has no place /
save among the very few who are original,
;nderendenf and sensible enough to Ike it I
end not be ashamed of it. Surely it is time !
c.. the doctrines of a TolstOi to be prOmul- !